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Thursday, 3 May 2007

Diabetes is controllable !

Normally diabetes is taken as a dreaded disease in the sense that it is supposed to cause multifarious complications in the body system compounding to various ailments one after the other.There are many to claim that it is fully curable and necessary prescription on that count are pouring into market every now and then. Doctors are not of one opinion and each one tells about it purely from their commercial point of view. I am not a doctor nor have done any academic course on it. I am just as good a patient as thousands of people in the country.I strongly believe that curable or not but diabetes is certainly controllable if necessary regimen of a disciplined life pattern is followed. Based on my individual experience as a patient, the following is the text of what I once submitted as a frugal brief to ACCUCHECK as requisitioned by them:

"Diabetes is disease that is more a challenge than ailment. If tamed, it infact alerts a patient against likelihood of different ailments. The disease is undoubtely capable of causing havoc as cells in the pancreas damaged once are irreversible but, if taken seriously and as a challenge, the harm so caused can be taken care of.What is required is a proper monitoring with a sense of perseverance. I am in mid sixties having diabetes for the last 3 decades -blood sugar shooting up 480 at one stage in Jaslok Hospital,Mumbai. Presently, say continuously for the last 3 years, it is under control with Blood Sugar (Fasting) hardly exceeding 90 and Blood Sugar (PP) remaining within 118. I am insulin dependant with 9 Units (Human Mixtard) before breakfast and 19 Units at dinner. Pathological test sugar is meticulously done every month besides a daily checkup through Diastix. Dietary precautions I take as advised by doctors prove helpful in overcoming disorders likely to occur otherwise.

I resorted to insulin at my own as the concerned doctors were all advocating for an increased dose of different tablets which, to my mind, are a cause for some adverse effect or the other to vital organs in the body. This switch over gives me the confidence that it hardly causes any side effects and that the amount of dose can accurately be measured in terms of the need staggering it upward or downward as be the cassse in consonance with food intake. I don't think an accurate and well measured dose of medicine is possible in the case of talets. Pricks that an isulin taker undergoes are no doubt inconvenient but it is worth ignoring them in the context of protection and safety it offers to a patient of diabetes."

A big anomalous feature which the patients of Diabetes suffer from most is that they are unnecessarily required very often to call on their doctors paying them exhorbitantly.Diagnosis wise and from pathological point of view, doctors opinion is certainly the need. This is the factor where it is very difficult to get the correct opinion with an accurate pathological test.Doctors opinion in most of the cases is just commercial. Only a few are lucky to get proper advice. But the problem is where the patients should go. What they should do is to only initially concentrate on obtaining a proper diagnosis on disease whereafter concentration has to be more on follow up with self monitoring without wasting money and time by calling on doctors simply to know about their current rate of sugar fluctuation which they can do better and with more of confidence if they resort to devices available for the purpose like glucometer to check sugar and Blood Pressure monitor to check the blood pressure which is a normal problem with the diabetics. The three instruments e.g. Huma Pen for those who are insulin dependent using pen instead of routine syringe, striips to check blood sugar and Glucometer are cursorily indicated in the photograph above. The mode and kind of these devices may vary according to individual preference. Investment on these devices is worth it if you compare much bigger an amount you have to spend by depending on outside sources and that too hardly reliable.

Self discipline, self monitoring and self followup are the essential measures which are capable of giving much more relief to diabetics compared to confusing opinions commercially given by the doctors. I am not for not consulting physicians at all but what I plead is to secure necessary confidence on where your ailment stands which is possible only when you do it yourself. Patients are to consult doctors only on selective basis and the followup measures can best be followed by them themselves in much better and safe a measure sticking to routine medication, testing and healthfully better dietary intake. Normally what doctors suggest on diet is the same what their predecessors used to prescribe ages back. How funny it looks that when you go to a physician, he hardly talks to you for a few minutes and what he invariably has to do at the end is to put a stamped version of diet which he might have done dozens of times with other patients before you called on him. This is the system the topmost doctors in the city adopt.

With adequate precautions, self monitoring and a regular follow up it is no more a difficulty in controlling diabetes. There are conflicting opinions whether it is fully curable or not but diabetics need not take it for granted that it can be eliminated simply because some doctor or the other boastfully claims so.For routine medicinal preliminaries and followup measures, you yourself can be the best judge.